


All Those Violet Tiaras

by afterandalasia



Series: Femslash Drabbletag 6 [16]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Community: femslash100, F/F, Language of Flowers, Librarian Belle, Mulan in Storybrooke, Pre-Femslash, Sappho - Freeform, Storybrooke, Violets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 14:15:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4438646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After one month of living in Storybrooke, Mulan begins pinning violets to her chest.</p><p>Belle is determined to find out why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Those Violet Tiaras

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notherhappyending](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notherhappyending/gifts).



One month after moving to Storybrooke, wearing modern clothes, and learning to use computers, Mulan began pinning violets to her chest.

Belle could not help but notice; Mulan had not struck her as the flowers sort. She watched curiously, and though she caught Mulan’s eye a few times, no explanation was forthcoming. Once, Mulan might have blushed.

The violets continued whenever Mulan was at the library. One night, she even left them in the glass of water at Belle’s desk.

Intrigued, Belle took to her books, then online, knowing that there must be something there. When she found it, she blushed, and considered the violets for a long time before heading home for the night.

The next morning, she pinned violets to her chest. When Mulan saw, she looked startled, and Belle caught her hand before she would turn away.

“I would love a date,” she said.

Mulan smiled shyly, letting her hand linger in Belle’s. “You found my message.”

“It took a while. Violets are a little out of date, you know.”

“It was hard to tell.”

“Over two thousand years,” Belle teased, with a kiss to Mulan’s hand. “ _If you forget me, think of our gifts to Aphrodite, and all the loveliness that we shared,_

“ _all the violet tiaras_.”

“I remembered that you liked to read,” said Mulan. “I did not know if that included Sappho. I read about her here.”

“Well, it does now,” said Belle decisively. “We should discuss her work further.”

“I would love to.”

**Author's Note:**

> Violets really were a way for women attracted to women to find and communicate with each other in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries! So Mulan missed, but she tried.
> 
> Belle quotes one of the poems of Sappho. Sappho mentions violets several times in her poetry - at least three that I could find, which is pretty impressive for the fragments that we have.


End file.
